Live at Vortex Jazz Club in London: Frank Carlberg with the Trinity Laban Jazz Orchestra (Two Shows)

The Trinity Laban Jazz orchestra conducted by Olivia Murphy returns to the Vortex in a new project with Frank Carberg on piano.

Frank Carlberg is a NYC-resident composer, arranger, pianist and educator whose extensive body of work ranges from small ensembles to big bands, duos to symphony orchestras. Carlberg has performed and recorded with musical giants Steve Lacy, Bob Brookmeyer, Roswell Rudd and Kenny Wheeler, and studied with Jimmy Giuffre, Paul Bley, Ran Blake, and Geri Allen. Since 1999 he is part of the jazz faculty of New England Conservatory, Boston. Furthering the legacy of his esteemed teachers, Carlberg has left an imprint on such former students as composer Nicholas Urie; pianists Vardan Ovsepian, Leo Genovese, Carmen Staaf, Julian Shore and Isaac Wilson; saxophonists Noah Preminger and Brian Landrus; bassists Kim Cass and Simon Willson; trumpeter David Adewumi, and many more. Carlberg also directs the NEC Jazz Composers’ Workshop Ensemble, allowing student composers to hear their works for large jazz orchestra realized in live performance.

After moving to New York in 1992, Carlberg became enmeshed in the city’s thriving jazz and creative music scene. He became a founding member of Brooklyn’s Douglass Street Music Collective and organized the borough’s annual Gowanus Jazz Fest from 2010-2014. Meanwhile his work continued to grow in scope, garnering support from Chamber Music America’s New Works Commission Grant and French-American Collaboration Grant, as well as fellowships at MacDowell, Yaddo and the Millay Arts Residency. As leader of the Frank Carlberg Large Ensemble, Carlberg performs originals as well as arrangements and re-compositions of standards and folk materials, as heard on the 2024 release Elegy For Thelonious and its 2019 predecessor Monk Dreams, Hallucinations and Nightmares (4 1/2 and 5 stars respectively from DownBeat).

With Tivoli Trio, joined by bassist John Hébert and drummer Gerald Cleaver, Carlberg plays an eclectic mix of original music drawn from cinematic and circus inspirations (“pushes the boundaries of the traditional piano trio” – Mark Corroto, All About Jazz).